New stadium thread

[glasgow sheep]

 

I'm sure I read somewhere very recently that AFC football club wouldn't own the stadium? Hence my outrage at exchanging one debt for another but then not having any assets.

 

Who did they suggest would?

[glasgow sheep]

This is what Chris Crighton had to say after last nights AGM:

IT'S RARE for Aberdeen F.C to achieve qualification in any field these days.

Scarcely do they threaten to ascend into the European places and seldom do they navigate their way through cup rounds. But a significant qualification has been obtained this season-that which the auditors attached to their report on the clubs accounts.

Deloitte, in the annual report which theoretically formed the basis of last nights Annual general meeting, was moved to state It's opinion on AFC's financial statements was restricted by the lack of agreed banking facilities beyond February 28th 2012, in laymans terms, leap day could see the bank tell the club to go jump.

It won't come to that, of course, due to the intervention of the chairman but the concessions the club will require to make to secure continuation of the overdraft merit consideration.

The amounts owed to the bank are guaranteed against the stadium and when last the debt was negotiated the club was forced to agree to certain unspecified conditions regarding its sale.

We may presume that, with the club having actively marketed the plot and the Bank of Scotland effectively holding the deeds, the banks indulgence through 2012 will entirely be contingent on the grounds disposal, and therefore the construction of its as-yet funded replacement, against which backdrop the recent extention of the bidding window- due , one can only speculate about-casts grave concerns.

AFC'S decision makers have driven so far up the cul-de-sac the only way out is steamrolling Pittodrie, and the club finds itself dependent on developers making rich offers for an asset they are desperate to sell and over which they have ceded control.

[mizer]

1.1m per acre is one thing

 

Price for 13.7 acres with outline planning consent for x number of houses is another

 

My understanding was that the £1.1m figure was for prime city centre land with planning permission. With your insight into the trade is there anywhere to look for figures?

 

Another good point and the very reason the club went to the trouble of gaining planning consent prior to putting the stadium up for sale.

 

Mizer

 

Wow the insight of Stewart Milne and the board, I nor any cunt would have never thought of that.

[Superstar Tradesman]

All this not owning the new stadium talk is pish, it's just the same as buying a home and having a mortgage on it. Nothing to panic over at all.

 

.......unless you cannot afford to make repayments, regardless of the extensive cost cutting exercises you've done over a 15 year period, much to the detriment of your very existance.

 

 

[rocket_scientist]

This from Chrichton is the best summation: -

 

"AFC'S decision makers have driven so far up the cul-de-sac the only way out is steamrolling Pittodrie"

 

Whilst this much is fact, what is debatable and speculative and contestable are the reasons.

 

Some might say the situation we find ourselves in is an unfortunate circumstance, the result of adverse economic conditions. Others might say that the present was deliberately engineered in the past.

[glasgow sheep]

.......unless you cannot afford to make repayments, regardless of the extensive cost cutting exercises you've done over a 15 year period, much to the detriment of your very existance.

 

The argument would be (and time will tell how much truth there is) that we will have more favourable repayment and interest arrangements on any new mortgage and will not have the cost of maintaining a stadium that is falling to bits. Thus costs (excluding football) should decrease (and income ex football increase)

[tom_widdows]

My understanding was that the £1.1m figure was for prime city centre land with planning permission. With your insight into the trade is there anywhere to look for figures?

 

Wow the insight of Stewart Milne and the board, I nor any cunt would have never thought of that.

 

Thanks to the city councils antics over the last few years I reckon it would be almost impossible to get a ballpark figure on 1 acre of land in Aberdeen.

However 1 acre of land in a city centre will get you fuck all as a developer after the restrictions regarding green space, daylighting, parking etc. Once you get over 3 acres I believe the price starts to go up because you have more freedom. Could be wrong though

 

 

 

[tom_widdows]

if its this one then it is about 1/6 of the size of pittodrie (2.4acres)

 

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.asp?lID=39322&sID=16528

 

However unless someone has a connections in the commercial property sector the price it was sold for wont be revealed to public for a while

 

[onlyjim]

I live in Shetland and Pittodrie is easy to get to on foot after the ferry.. Give me a break.. another mile maybe less and they wouldn't even be in Aberdeenshire

bringing up an old topic.

No apologies for offence.

[onlyjim]

How long did that take you to draw and scan in

Why a blue elephant ..Pink is the norm'

[dave_min]

So have Pittodrie and owing £x million is unmanageable.

 

Have a new ground and owing £x million is ok.

 

[glasgow sheep]

So have Pittodrie and owing £x million is unmanageable.

 

Have a new ground and owing £x million is ok.

 

 

Yes

[Superstar Tradesman]

The argument would be (and time will tell how much truth there is) that we will have more favourable repayment and interest arrangements on any new mortgage and will not have the cost of maintaining a stadium that is falling to bits. Thus costs (excluding football) should decrease (and income ex football increase)

 

Ifs, buts and maybes in there.

 

Here are some facts:

 

We can't fill the stadium we currently have that is within walking distance of the city centre and people's homes.

 

Pittodrie is "falling down" despite our chairman building thousands of constructions all over Scotland each year.

 

Not one aspect of the club has been a success under Milne's stewardship, why should this be any different?

 

 

[glasgow sheep]

Ifs, buts and maybes in there.

 

Here are some facts:

 

We can't fill the stadium we currently have that is within walking distance of the city centre and people's homes.

 

Pittodrie is "falling down" despite our chairman building thousands of constructions all over Scotland each year.

 

Not one aspect of the club has been a success under Milne's stewardship, why should this be any different?

 

I never said it was my argument as every point you make shows it's flaws.

[Kowalski]

Dons stadium dream gets big boost from planners

 

By Ryan Crighton

 

Published: 06/01/2012

 

Planners have backed Aberdeen FC’s bid to build a new training complex on the outskirts of the city – paving the way for the club to seal a move from its historic Pittodrie home.

 

The multimillion-pound proposals – which also include a new 1,500-capacity stadium for Highland League side Cove Rangers – have been recommended for approval by city council officials.

 

The two clubs will join forces to create a major football and sports centre at Calder Park, with Dons chairman Stewart Milne willing to put up his own money to back the project.

[mizer]

Same story as Kow's but on redweb http://www.afc.co.uk/articles/20120112/stadium-plans-_2275060_2574597

 

12.01.2012

 

Plans for a new football stadium, pitches and community facilities in have been agreed by city councillors.

 

Cove Rangers Football Club and Aberdeen Football Club submitted the plans for a football stadium with club facilities, pitch and terracing, an indoor sports and community facility and outdoor football facilities including a floodlit all-weather pitch, at Calder Park.

 

The pitch and stadium will be built on the northern part of the site and occupied by Cove Rangers FC. The football ground will have capacity of approximately 1,500 and the stadium, to the west of the pitch, will have seating for 490 people.

 

The indoor sports, fitness and community facility will include an indoor football arena, sports hall, gymnasium, two fitness suites, changing rooms, meeting room, café and offices.

 

Six outdoor football pitches are also to be created, covering the southern part of the site. This would include three full-sized grass pitches.

 

Vice-convener John Corall said: "This is a welcome addition to the city. It will be of enormous benefit to not just the professional and amateur football players, but it will also have significant social and sports benefits for the wider community."

[glasgowdon]

Nice one, start digging ffs.

[Tyrant]

When is it they want to start using it? Season 2013-2014? Is it quite conceivable that the entire ground could be completed in 18 months? And that's if they start building now!

[maverick sheep]

When is it they want to start using it? Season 2013-2014? Is it quite conceivable that the entire IKEA flatpack could be completed in 18 months? And that's if they start building now!

 

 

It sounds like an ok training complex, which is what we desperately need to tempt players to stay aberdeen.

 

Never move pittodrie though. fuck that shit

 

 

[Mentorred]

New stadium has been redesigned, will now have a retractable roof.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tlg1903]

[glasgow sheep]

http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/aberdeen-looks-to-new-stadium-to-reignite-old-firm-challenge/

 

Aberdeen’s Pittodrie Stadium has a long history of pioneering. Among its boasts, it was the first soccer stadium in the world to feature a dugout and it was the first all-seat stadium in Britain.

 

In the 1980s, Pittodrie was the trailblazing home fit for Sir Alex Ferguson’s trailblazing team that captured two European trophies, three Scottish league championships, four Scottish Cups and one League Cup during a dominant six-year stretch. Now the club is trying to lead again by moving to the biggest new stadium in Scotland for more than a century.

 

That spells the end for Pittodrie, Aberdeen’s home since 1903. The fabled site, not much farther than a goal kick from the bitter North Sea on Scotland’s northeastern coast, seems destined to be turned into an apartment block while the soccer team moves to new surroundings on the city’s southern perimeter.

 

 

Relocation is not sitting well with traditionalists used to parking their cars on the sea esplanade or in the crowded streets around the stadium. Nor with those that stroll from Aberdeen’s nearby city center, stopping off for a pre-match pint in their favorite bar before marching down Merkland Road where they are warmed by Pittodrie’s gloomy granite facade that bears the club’s name. A recent survey conducted by the city’s Evening Express newspaper revealed that 52 percent of respondents were unhappy with the move.

 

“I take encouragement from that in some ways,” said Duncan Fraser, Aberdeen’s chief executive, in a recent interview. “When you start this process people overwhelmingly don’t want to move, but I think they are beginning to see the reality.”

 

Soccer’s landscape has altered dramatically since Ferguson left for Manchester United in 1986, and stadium requirements were overhauled after the incidents at Bradford, Heysel and Hillsborough.

 

“When you look at stadium development now, Pittodrie’s fallen so far behind,” Fraser said. “It’s an old crumbling, structure.”

 

Fraser’s grandparents lived within earshot of the Pittodrie crowd’s cheers and he attended his first Aberdeen game as a 6-year-old in 1971. The evening of March 16, 1983, stands out as his fondest memory of Pittodrie, as it surely does for all of the 24,000 fans that crammed inside to see Aberdeen topple Bayern Munich in the European Cup Winners’ Cup quarterfinal.

 

The stadium filled again two months later as jubilant fans welcomed home Ferguson’s all-conquering Dons after they beat Real Madrid in Gothenburg, Sweden, to lift the trophy.

 

 

 

“Those memories don’t go,” Fraser said. “When we move, we’ll be doing it for the right reason and we need to do it.”

 

Another European encounter with Bayern Munich four years ago highlighted Pittodrie’s shortcomings to the club’s staff. The stadium, with its field hemmed in by four separate structures and its main stand supported by view-obscuring pillars, could not cope with the demands of German television and the increased news media presence. Staging a game of such magnitude in this era requires facilities that Pittodrie lacks.

 

“We haven’t got enough space for referees,” said Chris Gavin, a nonexecutive director appointed to the club’s board as a fans’ representative. “You’ve got to be able to accommodate female referees, warm-up areas, all kinds of things, and there is no way to fit all of that on this site.”

 

 

Ian Thomson

Aberdeen’s home, Pittodrie Stadium, has a capacity of 22,199 and has been used since 1899.

Redeveloping Pittodrie would not be easy. Three stands back onto streets, housing sits behind the fourth, and strict UEFA standards have to be met.

 

“That would probably put our capacity down to 12,000 with very little corporate facilities,” Fraser said. “It would kill the club.”

 

Corporate revenue has remained strong in a city where a booming oil and gas industry has fortified the local economy. Aberdeen’s income from match day entertainment is “way above any other club in Scotland at the moment,” Fraser said, and the new stadium will increase corporate facilities by two-thirds.

 

A supporters’ bar for regular fans will adjoin the facility, extra legroom and catering outlets will be provided, and shuttle buses will ferry people to the stadium from several park-and-ride destinations around the city. An on-site museum documenting the history of Aberdeen’s soccer club and the entire region will be used throughout the year as an attraction for visitors and local schools.

 

It has been more than 16 years since the last piece of silverware — the 1995 Scottish League Cup — was added to Pittodrie’s trophy cabinet, and Celtic and Rangers have resumed joint-ownership of the league title since Aberdeen’s last success in 1985. Even the Old Firm giants are suffering economic hardship as broadcasting revenue floods into Europe’s largest markets at the expense of smaller nations.

 

Attendances in Scotland are falling and declining playing standards means reduced income from transfer fees. In Aberdeen’s case, Fraser estimates that staying at Pittodrie adds about $1 million annually to the club’s expenses to keep the stadium certified with health and safety requirements.

 

“Aberdeen need to be seen as the natural challengers to the Old Firm,” Fraser said. “That’s what our supporters strive for and that’s what we’ve got to aim for.”

 

Ian Thomson is a New York-based journalist and former Aberdeen season-ticket holder who attended his first game at Pittodrie in April 1982. Follow him on Twitter at i_thomson.

[BigAl]

Quality piece of journalism, highlighting the facts but also acknowledging the emotional ties.

Didn't actually pick up upon the source until the end, but somehow ~i knew it wasn't from one of our tabloids

[Tyrant]

“Aberdeen need to be seen as the natural challengers to the Old Firm' date='” Fraser said. “That’s what our supporters strive for and that’s what we’ve got to aim for.”[/quote']

 

But we're not aiming for this. Not even a little bit close. Fuck off with this bullshit, eh.

[manc_don]

But we're not aiming for this. Not even a little bit close. Fuck off with this bullshit, eh.

 

My thoughts exactly when I read it. I want action and not words from the club.